Old and New Python Versions

PPA description

This PPA has older and newer Python versions for Ubuntu. The packages in the official archives generally don't go back all that far, but people might still need to develop and test against these old Python interpreters. There also was a time when Google App Engine still ran on Python 2.5, but nobody likes to talk about that.

A disclaimer first: I do not guarantee any kind of updates. In particular, I shed all responsibility for security issues in these packages. If you want to use them in a security-or-otherwise-critical environment (say, on a production server), you do so at your own risk.

Basically, if an Ubuntu version doesn't have an official package for a specific major Python version (be it "any more" or "yet"), look for one in this PPA. However, for a given Python major release, don't expect to find newer point releases if there is already an older point release in the official Ubuntu repositories (i.e., if an Ubuntu release has a package for Python 2.6.4, I won't provide a package with 2.6.5 for that Ubuntu release): newer Python point releases shouldn't add new features or change behaviour, so they're rather pointless (no pun intended) for development and testing; conversely, if that Python point release has a bug that is fixed in a newer release, that's still an issue with the original package and should be taken up with the Ubuntu or Debian maintainer of the package. Besides, making these update packages externally to the original repositories is a bit of a pain.

Supported Python Packages
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Using third-party modules packaged for Debian or Ubuntu with the Python interpreters from this repository is a bit of a mixed bag. For Python 2, Python modules from the official repositories will not work, as a consequence of how Python packaging works in Debian. For Python 3 on the other hand, all pure-Python module packages at least should be available; compiled extension modules will not work however.

In general, you're better off installing Python modules using the common Python packaging tools rather than the system package manager. For an introduction into the Python packaging ecosystem and its tools, refer to the Python Packaging User Guide [1].